Someone, somewhere, supposedly said, “it’s not the things that we don’t know about the past that are the problem. It’s the things we know that just aren’t so.”

Engraving is another term for the “things we know that just aren’t so.” It applies to those ideas that are almost engraved on our brain, that even education doesn’t always remove. Perhaps a belief that the Earth gets warmer in the summer because it’s getting closer to the Sun; or that heavier objects really do fall faster than lighter objects.

Some engravings persist even after taking courses that teach the exact opposite of the engraving. While some claim that it takes years of advanced study to eliminate engravings, I think that may be optimistic. Engravings are powerful things. Read More→